The Unchosen: Book One of The Queen Beyond

by Simon Markusson

  “Oh,” a woman with a fan said. “The moinguir will do as they will. Luckily, they are too small to make any big trouble, isn’t that so?”

  They all laughed.

  “Yes, well, we are lucky that they don’t give their fire-powder to the madmen. Mark me, though, it is just to keep the secret from us.”

  “Well, I know to respect our short friends, at least,” the first lady said with a prudent smile. “See, my cousin had this moinguir ambassador for dinner once, and she had made sure to buy all the things she had heard would be appropriate. Even that awful ale they make in Kast-Harnax!” She giggled sweetly but stifled it with a few gloved fingers to her lips. “Anyway, after the dinner, she received this wonderful necklace like you wouldn’t believe! She wore it to court once, when she had the chance, and the queen herself gave her compliments for it! Oh, I wish I could show you. Words can’t do it justice.”

  “Yes, wonderful craft,” the thin gentleman agreed. “Doesn’t Prince Raen have a moinguir-forged sword?”

  “He does,” the fat man confirmed. “It’s called...Peacekeeper, isn’t that it? Given to him in honor of the long understanding between Undran and Kast-Harnax, they say, but I say...”

  Nathelion stopped listening. Is Molgrimin...banished because of his temper? Is that why he seeks some beast to slay, some feat that can restore his honor? He hadn’t thought that it could be as serious as that. In fact, he had believed that it was all some strange complex of the dwarf, a peculiar and very unhealthy obsession with violence.

  It all made him see Molgrimin in a much sadder light. For if it were true, then perhaps the dwarf’s only hope lay in his impossible ambitions after all. No way other than battle, following some strange warrior tradition. He almost had to smile at the thought of what a tragic company they all made. Alwarul with his delusions, Molgrimin with his vain hope, and he himself...a farmhand and a thief who had run away.

  They waited in the common room until Molgrimin returned with the gray-haired physician, whom Alwarul tried to dismiss. When even the serving maids begged him to let the man have a look at him, however, he gave up and underwent a quick examination, all the while shaking his head and chuckling to himself. In the end, perhaps Alwarul’s amusement was well founded, since the physician didn’t seem able to decide much beyond the fact that he was old. The physician gave Alwarul a bottle of pills, not saying if it would cure old age or not, and he advised him to sleep sitting up. And to stay away from water. Alwarul kept chuckling without making any kind of protest, while the serving maids nodded serenely at the physician’s words.

  Expecting Sir Conrad to be back any moment, the squire had already gone to have the horses saddled in the stable. Molgrimin had to run after him and make sure that no one tried to saddle Meriehse. Alwarul stayed with Nathelion after the physician had left, speaking solemnly at his side while he ordered what would no doubt be his last ale.

  “You must be very alert in the Hills, Nathelion,” the old man was saying. “I fear that, after all we’ve heard, they will be more hostile than they usually are. But although the barbarians muster, my greatest worry is what beasts may have found a home among the jagged rocks of the hills. Be watchful, Nathelion. If you fall, we will all be doomed — remember this always.”

  Yes, I will try not to indulge in my passion for mortal danger. “I will be wary.”

  “Good,” Alwarul said after a brief silence. “Good. We should reach the Martyr’s Passage in two weeks’ time if we avoid delays. Then the journey to Lourne shall be swifter.”

  Nathelion was growing increasingly nervous, waiting to go to Rurhav while Alwarul described its innumerable dangers. Yet just when he was about to lose courage, there was a whiff of mint, a laugh, and a thump as the obnoxious bard sat down with his instrument cases at their table.

  “Well, well, well, did the peasant just turn noble?” Arisfae asked with his confident smile. “Who was it that knighted you so suddenly, Sir Nightshadow?”

  Nathelion didn’t answer that, but instead, he started to introduce the man to Alwarul. The old man, however, was ahead of him. “There is something very peculiar about you,” Alwarul stated.

  Arisfae laughed. “Finally, someone who recognizes my heritage! I happen to be gifted with just the right amount of ilesefen blood,” the bard boasted. “The name is Arisfae Mirenas — and you must be the wise Alwarul. Perhaps you truly are a wizard, then. At least your eyes are as keen.”

  “Ilesefen blood?” Alwarul mused aloud. “That is a rare trait. Yet I wonder, how come you know us?”

  “He is coming with us through Rurhav,” Nathelion said. “Molgrimin told him a whole lot.”

  Alwarul’s eyes narrowed at the man. “And what interest do you have in our quest?”

  “Well, wizard, I am a bard. I have interest in a great deal of quests.”

  “I doubt you would find ours to be very agreeable,” Alwarul said. “And you let your mockery reveal your ignorance. You are entreating upon a door you do not wish to open, Arisfae Mirenas. Follow us, and you will find yourself among horrors I doubt you can invent in your songs.”

  Arisfae chuckled. “Why, you sound rather convincing. I know many places where your storytelling would be requested, wizard, but I fear I am not so easily daunted. The moinguir would have me come, and I shan’t waste this chance. I sense promise here.”

  “What promise is there in going through Rurhav, save your own death?” Nathelion asked. “You’re a jester, not a bard.”

  “Ah, and the knight adds his voice to the wizard’s. I must admit, I am rather surprised by the fact that you are still here. I guess you found some courage in that stoop. Am I right?”

  “Bard,” Alwarul said with a sigh, “You do not know what world lies beyond your sight. I bid you, stay here and forget that we ever passed through.”

  Arisfae looked at him. “As I said, there is too much promise here. See, if the Reclaimer doesn’t do anything spectacular, why then, maybe I’ll still be able to write satire!”

  26

  Poetry

  “Don’t,” Nathelion had to say, even when he knew that it would make no difference to the bard. “Don’t write a satire. Gods, I loathe them.”

  “You...you do?” Arisfae’s confident smile suddenly vanished. He seemed almost uncomfortable. Nathelion was sure that he was being mocked, though he did not know quite how, which only served to make it worse.

  He was still trying to understand the jest when the bard was suddenly called for by someone: “Bard, take the stage!”

  Others repeated the request. “Play something, Arisfae!”

  “It seems I am wanted,” Arisfae noted smugly, and he uncased a silver harp from his collection of instruments. “Please, watch my luggage.”

  The gentle applause of the patrons accompanied the singer as he took to the stage. Arisfae sat down on a tall stool placed there for him and plucked a few enchanting notes on his harp. Nathelion turned uncomfortably in his chair, loath to see such dexterous skill in a braggart. I could have done the same. When he was six, he said? Just shows what training he’s had. But it was hard to imagine when Arisfae began playing, smoothly and softly, filling the common room with notes that grew wondrous even to Nathelion’s spurning mind. Gentle sighs of music drifted wistfully through endless time and made his heart resonate.

  “My ladies and gentlemen, tell me, what is it that you wish to hear?” the singer asked humbly.

  “Poetry!” requested a pretty young lady in a blue dress, and Arisfae rewarded her with a loving smile.

  “Poetry, then, for the sweet lady in blue. What poetry is it that you seek, though, my dove? Is it of romance and love or tragedy and loss? Tell me, and I shall serve.”

  “These are dark times,” the pretty lady said, surprising Nathelion. “So, tell us something about overcoming such times to make our burdens feel lighter.”

  Arisfae’s harp picked up at her suggestion, like a gushing rivulet of tunes that at once made the heart flutter with hope. But t
hen his music turned sorrowful, almost making them shiver. “The greatest and sweetest hope is the one bred in the deepest despair,” Arisfae intoned over the mourning tunes. “Though it is also the frailest. Much tragedy is there, my ladies and gentlemen, yet now I was asked for some brighter poetry. Let me tell you, then, of a hero who lived in dark times — just as these — and if you’d asked him, he’d have told you that his times were always dark. Yet there always remained a frail hope that was not snuffed out. It endured, an ember through all pain, and then came to burn like one of the stars.” When Arisfae started his recital, all ears were bent to hear his theatrical voice and the music that underscored it.

  Hardship! Mountains, they crumble,

  Time withers he who is brief.

  Woe, are not all past and beyond you

  To suffer indignity and shame at the wayside

  As life parades you by?

  Silly one, straw man of thought,

  Be still in your suffering

  Who thrashes and tantrum throws!

  Complaining as the wind blows

  That cold be cold and hard be hard,

  Isolation and desolation,

  After ill choices on passion’s storms,

  Now a fool on driftwood to lonely shores,

  Floating on without a will to live!

  Stand straight in your disgrace,

  Not to save face as you have lost

  A man are you, though to ruins tossed,

  Now the trial begins! Yea, failure would be your surrender.

  Lo! a chance to prove

  That mettle is strength in burdened chest.

  Endurance grows!

  Spit and spite not to unmake,

  Petty things are like rain, demonstrations of that

  Which does not yield.

  Stillness in endurance, all calamity comes together,

  A hurricane surrounds me, essence of man,

  For all who know destruction of self

  Know who I am,

  The eye of the storm.

  Yea, I am the eye of the storm.

  The harp made a powerful emphasis on the last bit, as did Arisfae’s voice, and the applause that showered the bard was genuine with admiration. “Bravo! Bravo!” some men called, and Nathelion grimaced. It wasn’t that good. A bit nonsensical, really. Alwarul clapped his hands, however, nodding with approval at the show, seemingly amused at his own enthusiasm for it.

  The bard graciously acknowledged his listeners, and then he silenced the applause to take another request.

  “Sing, Arisfae!” The shout came from a group of women. “Sing for us, please!”

  “A song for your beauty.” Arisfae inclined his head and then set about playing an alluring piece of music that seemed like silk and honey and smoldering fires, making the women swoon. He sang, quietly and intensely, in some flowing language that Nathelion did not know. He turned back to the table and decided to order more ale just to bear the wait.

  As time passed, more songs were sung, and Nathelion matched their number with his draughts. By the time Arisfae excused himself from the stage to more loud applause, Nathelion already felt better. Molgrimin came in through the door then, saying that Sir Conrad had arrived.

  Outside, the knight was already mounted on his destrier. In the stable, Nathelion took some amusement in seeing the bard hastily — but also with great care — trying to fasten his many instrument cases to the saddle of his dun palfrey. Molgrimin went up to help him but was asked not to after dropping the small cases on the ground a few times.

  “Sir says to hurry,” Tim informed them, looking in through the stable door. It was no issue for Nathelion; he had nothing to pack. He rode out into the street and enjoyed the knight’s obvious irritation at the delay of the bard.

  “Did he pack all his dresses?” the knight muttered under his breath, and Nathelion grinned.

  It was not quite midday when they rode. Nathelion was pleased to notice that the people they passed were mostly looking at him now, in his mighty blacks and gold and with his great mantle, mounted upon the biggest destrier of them all. Every child stared at him in open admiration as he rode along with his party. And he hadn’t even put on his helmet, keeping it fastened to the saddle in order to enjoy a better view.

  Alwarul rode up to Sir Conrad. “You look troubled, sir. Is there something you have heard that we should know of?”

  If the knight had looked troubled, that expression was swiftly replaced by a sneer at the old man’s question. “I wouldn’t fancy that,” he said coarsely.

  “Nothing of the barbarians, then?” asked Alwarul, earning a brief, considering look from the knight.

  “Hopefully, they won’t be in our way.”

  “Let the savages come. I’ll chop them all up...” Molgrimin grumbled.

  You don’t even have a weapon to chop with, Nathelion thought hopelessly, though he did envy the moinguir’s rather overflowing confidence.

  They left the finer districts as they neared the walls. Music streamed out from all kinds of establishments, and Arisfae picked out a melody to whistle: some merry tune that contrasted with the grim weather. Nathelion found it increasingly vexing to hear.

  An old man in ragged clothes suddenly limped up to them in one of the less affluent streets. With a toothless grin, he said, “Ye will all perish! The doom is near! Devils will eat all yer children and mount yer wives!”

  “Out of the way,” Sir Conrad said in a rather bored tone, and he spurred his horse to ride past. The doomsayer was almost trampled by the horse — he would’ve been if he hadn’t moved aside — and then he shouted after them, “The fiends are coming for ye, sir! Ye’ll know them soon!”

  The city gate was already open when they reached it, and a few slow carts were making their way through them with cabbages and carrots. Leaving for the south? Nathelion felt almost jealous as he looked at the men slouching in the drivers’ seats while the mules struggled to pull their loads. Some young boys helped motivate the animals, tugging at their bits and calling at them. All seemed to stop, though, when the party approached, and even the resigned men by the reins stared at him. I really didn’t choose the subtlest outfit.

  There was no Sir Wilfrey upon the wall now, no one calling down to have them stop or see them away with that last farewell that had been promised. Perhaps it meant that their doom wouldn’t come quite yet. He wanted to think so, but somehow, the lack of that goodbye seemed more ominous than any warning, and the cold was in his heart when they rode out onto the bleak, frozen road beyond the city walls. They turned northwards along it now, down the mighty slope that formed the cliff of Sacrifice.

  He looked up at the dark fortress when they had come far below it, and he saw how perilous a fortification it was before the cramped pass that they would follow. The arrow slits and battlements of Sacrifice would allow archers to fire their bows at anyone coming from the Hills this way, it seemed to him, but none could hope to aim at those distant catwalks from the pass.

  “So,” Molgrimin said as they rode in between the crushing mountain walls. “Now we are leaving law and order behind us. In the Hills, ye’ll only find a predator’s mercy.”

  The shadows that enveloped them beneath the mountains were cold and deep, making Nathelion shiver. He didn’t know exactly when Arisfae had stopped whistling, but he noticed that there was no melody any longer. The mountains loomed over them on either side, silent giants of stone. The passage felt tight even though it was broad enough to allow for three carts to pass abreast.

  He sighed when they finally came out on a slope above a vast landscape, with rocky formations and cliffs now and then rising high to break their view. Everywhere were craggy stones and granite hills, mostly bare save for the few wiry trees and thorny bushes that struggled to grow wherever they found some soil. Cold winds swept over that petrified forest, and as they passed through the crevices that could be found among the rocks, they created a faint wailing. The dark sky was still and heavy over the dead wastel
and, and somewhere in the distance of that sweeping view, Nathelion thought he heard a chilling howl that did not belong to any winds.

  “We shall try to cross the Hills swiftly,” Conrad said silently from atop his destrier. “Rurhav has become more dangerous than ever.”

  27

  Into Rurhav

  If their view had been wide from the slope, Nathelion was dismayed upon realizing that it would not remain so. Far from it, in fact. When they rode down among the craggy hills, it was like riding through a maze, with long passages between the cliffs turning and twisting and at times growing so narrow that only one person could ride through at a time. Rocks lay strewn over the frozen ground, and sometimes, pebbles would bounce down the slope after they were disturbed by the hales. It all made Nathelion warily watch the edges of the plateaus above them, fearing, if not a beast or savage, then some sudden deluge of stones. The winds shook the few gnarly trees that had found root above them, though little but faint and cold breezes reached into the passages of the hills, the gusts coming now and then like the breath of some great beast.

  Nathelion rode closer to Sir Conrad while trying to restrain Skull from snapping at the other destrier. “There is not much life in these hills, I presume?”

  The place felt dead to him, barren and remote. Yet there was some disturbing promise even in the stillness, as if the Savage Hills themselves wanted to lull him into a false sense of security.

  “Most of the animals graze or prowl the heights,” Conrad answered, looking up at the distant cliffs. “Goats. And mountain lions. The latter can grow very large. If you are lucky, you may get the chance of seeing one leaping over the passages — from one precipice to another — high above you. They are very nimble, and sometimes, they frighten the horses. I remember there was a knight who broke his neck because of that once. His mount was not used to the Hills, and when a lion appeared, the horse threw him off right down a cliff.”